Collateral Damage
by archangel97
Summary: Sherlock Holmes had earned himself a reputation of sorts for his self-destructive tendencies. Now, despite the desperate efforts on the part of the good doctor to stop the inevitable, said habits had effectively linked around him like chains, and there was nothing left to do but face his impending demise with as much composure as possible.
1. Her

"Go on, then."

It was meant to be a gentle urge, but he heard the impatience nonetheless-heard the rubbing of fabric against fabric that meant his leg was bouncing with restless energy. He didn't move from his stance at the window, nor did he stop fiddling with the strings of the violin he hadn't touched in months, but he didn't have to in order to feel the pair of eyes boring holes into the back of his head. People tended to do that.

"Sherlock."

Ah. There was the quiet plea, the _I'm here for you, let me in_. He regretted giving in to his friend's attempt at therapy, but it had seemed the only way to get him to shut up at the time. He regretted making friends at all, let alone growing to love another person to the degree that he loved John. Hadn't he learned his lesson on that subject during primary school?

But John Watson was going to get his way—because that was what he did—so Sherlock reluctantly lowered his violin and turned to where the doctor was sitting in his chair, that look of eternal patience and concern plastered on his face in a way that made Sherlock feel like a child attempting to explain where it hurt to the pediatrician.

"You've read my file. You know what happened." He stated curtly, knowing even as he spoke that it wouldn't be enough to make John go away.

But the older man reached under his chair and brought out a thick file folder with the words "Collateral Damage" scrawled across the front. It landed with a dull thud on the coffee table between them. Unopened. Untouched.

Sherlock glanced from the folder to John's face and back. His side of the story, then. He should have guessed as much.

"I don't want to read something some other bloke wrote about what my best friend went through," John said with the determination that usually accompanied a case. "I want to hear it from you, and don't spare me the details."

"You realize that this is putting me in a situation in which I am highly uncomfortable—" Sherlock started.

"Only because you don't like dealing with emotions," John fired back.

"I do not—"

"Don't say it." There was a warning in his tone now. "Don't even say it."

Regret seeped into Sherlock's mind once more; the memory of John's face when the doctor had discovered him in a state of considerable malnutrition and exhaustion flashed across his vision and he internally cursed himself for allowing his friend to see that. What John didn't understand was that simply because dwelling on the details of his most recent "case" had led him to neglect his bodily necessities for longer than was per usual did not mean that there was any emotion attached to the incident. He was gripping the back of the nearest chair now, so hard that his knuckles had turned white because he did _not_ feel it he did not he did not _he did _**_not_. **

Collateral damage.

"Is that what they're calling it nowadays?" he asked, slowly releasing his grip on the chair back and settling into the one across from John instead. He watched the older man's brow furrow for a moment, but then he glanced at the name printed on the file cover and comprehension dawned without having to ask.

"So it was more important, then," he prompted.

Sherlock was silent for a moment, stretching out his senses so that he could hear Mrs. Hudson making her fourth cup of tea downstairs and the couple arguing across the street about who was supposed to pick up the dry cleaning, voices drifting up into the air to twist with the ever-present smell of carbon dioxide emissions from some enormous truck or another. London was constantly in motion, making it so easy to be swept away and forget that just a month ago the sound of car horns was replaced with the sound of gunshots.

"She wasn't collateral damage," the words spilled from his mouth before he was conscious of them, dragging him back to the flat where the man he never thought he'd see again was waiting for him to speak. He watched John's eyebrows reach for his hairline as he spoke.

"She?" he repeated, probably without meaning to.

Sherlock ran a hand over his face; a habit he had picked up from John whenever they were working on a particularly stressful case. With her name rose a lump that he had only felt once before in his life—while talking to John through the phone while standing on the roof of Bart's Hospital.

...

"**Lily Brimmings." **

**342536unmarriedorphanoldersisteronecatanxietyperfectmarksmanshipdoctorwhofanblackbelttrainedassassindemocrat20/20childhoodleukemiasecrettattoo-"Sorry, what?" **

**"Do try and focus, Mr. Holmes," An unmarried man with two small dogs and diabetes was glaring at him from behind spectacles, and Sherlock very nearly wrinkled his nose. He had recently developed and inexplicable hatred for spectacles. "I was just introducing you to one of our finest agents. This is your partner for this mission, Lily Brimmings." **

**Lily Brimmings. Orphaned as a teenager from a relatively affluent family with a public school education and singing lessons. Staring at him—no, calculating him—with violently blue eyes and bright blonde hair that suggested Russian—no, Scandinavian—descent.**

**"Nice to meet you, Mr. Holmes," a false English accent meant easily fluctuated identity and creases in the shirt at the ribs and wrists suggested a recent bout of deskwork. A trained assassin—one of their "finest agents"—doing deskwork?**

**Violation of protocol. Recently taken out of the field only to be put back in on a fatal mission.**

**"I was under the impression that I was to take on a one-man mission," he said to Spectacles, ignoring her. She had been holding out a hand for him to shake, but she dropped it now, blinking a couple times. Oh, right, that was probably rude.**

**"Ah," Spectacles replied, shifting uncomfortably and withdrawing a handkerchief from the same pocket in which he kept his inhaler, "Yes, well, the circumstances have changed. I'm sure you're used to hearing that."**

**So he knew, then, that the assignment was to prove fatal to both of them. What could she have messed up so badly that she had been selected to die where she needn't?**

**"Anyway," clearly uncomfortable, Spectacles beckoned them over to the nearest computer, where he swiftly brought up the floor plans to what appeared to be a grandiose hotel somewhere deep in Eastern Europe. Head of an organized crime associated with a tendency towards terrorism would be staying there for the next month; apprehend him and bring him in for questioning.**

**"That simple, yeah?" Lily muttered, lips twisting in the manner of someone fighting a smile.**

**Spectacles shot her a look and said, "We're putting our faith in you two to make it so," before carrying on with his wealth of useless information. They would lie in wait for a few days, make their move, fail, and be captured within two weeks.**

**Sherlock wasn't listening, staring at her expression of rapt attention and wondering what it would look like when it fell slack with death. The way Magnussen's head had snapped back with the impact of the bullet played over and over in his mind's eye. He'd known that killing the bastard would bring about his own death, and he'd do it again, given the chance.**

**But it was meant to just be him, not a petite blonde killing machine who had an actual life to live with actual good to do. Sherlock Holmes had earned himself a reputation of sorts for his self-destructive tendencies. Now, despite the desperate efforts on the part of the good doctor to stop the inevitable, said habits had effectively linked around him like chains, and there was nothing left to do but face his impending demise with as much composure as possible. But the knowledge that in leaping into the pits of hell he had unknowingly dragged someone else in with him made the task more difficult than he had anticipated. Imagining the look on John's face if he found that out was nearly enough to turn his stomach.**

**But John wouldn't find out, could never find out, and there was no use dwelling on the righteous indignation that would well up in the conscience his best friend was known for and had more than once accused Sherlock of lacking.**

**Crystalline blue eyes met his, and he nodded. They had a country to die for.**

**...**

Author's Note:

Terribly sorry for any inaccuracies on any front; if you see any, let me know. I'm also vaguely terrified of adding in a new character where the preexisting ones are already perfection, so please feel free to comment on what you think of Lily thus far!


	2. Push It

**Their instructions were clear. Pack as little as possible; luggage will be waiting at the room. Take this flight from this airport to that airport in this many hours; check in under the names of this married couple and effectively enter into deep cover.**

**Approximately 15,778,500 seconds in six months. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.**

**The first day, she made it clear that every drawer in the dresser, as well as half of the wardrobe, belonged to her. He set up his laptop while she stood at the window, gazing across the teeming street to the room in which their adversary—a flamboyantly wealthy man called Konevski—lurked. She would stare and stare and stare, attempting to figure out his habits and weak spots as though he wasn't just as aware of his surveillance as they were. And she would gain a wealth of useless information and become frustrated. Sherlock didn't have time for such fruitless exercises.**

**He longed for the dining room table at Baker Street, where his equipment was probably still sitting, his cultures slowly dying one by one.**

**She took the bed while he feigned sleep on the sofa.**

**The second day, they began the wary dance around each other that came with the requirement that they were to act as thoroughly in love as possible. Sherlock found the notion worthy of his most dramatic eye-roll, but Lily's dissatisfaction with the situation might as well have been stamped across her forehead, practically shoving him away from her whenever they were alone.**

**They went out, though, breakfasting in the hotel dining room because that was where Konevski was eating. She twisted golden strands around her fingers and fed him bits of toast from across the table and laughed charmingly at a joke John had told him years ago when he had stumbled home drunk, jumper askew and lipstick on his cheek. She came up behind him as he stood outside smoking—watching Konevski hail a cab and request to be taken to a nearby art museum—and delicately plucked the cigarette from his fingers, murmuring in flawless Russian about how she wished he wouldn't damage his lungs so. She clung to his arm at the art museum as they followed Konevski through the pristine white halls, pulling him over to stare at this or that meaningless piece of artwork and babbling about their histories even though neither of them was actually paying attention to a word she was saying.**

**He was tall, statuesque, and graying gracefully, wrapped in a genuine fur coat and paying little mind to the bottle blonde who was swinging from his arm spewing fake admiration for the artwork before them (who was actually married and running and insurance scam in a different part of the country). He was so obviously criminal—everything about him screamed be afraid—it was ludicrous. What was the point of sitting at the head of one of the world's most lethal criminal organizations if you were going to be so unbearably conspicuous about it?**

**He very nearly caught them staring, but Sherlock sensed the change in his stature and quickly dragged her in for a kiss instead, feeling every muscle in her body tense before quickly complying.**

**When they got back to the hotel room, she slapped him for it, rubbing at lips that no doubt tasted of tobacco. That night, her voice was barely audible over the bustle of the street below as she whispered into the empty space of darkness between them that she had been engaged to be married and that he had been killed, as though he hadn't already figured it out. Then she got up and locked herself in the bathroom, and didn't re-emerge until after Sherlock had fallen asleep.**

**The third day, he caught her doing yoga. ****_Yoga._**

**A headache-inducing mantra droned from the hi-tech speaker system in the corner of the room, making it a spectacular challenge to refrain from bashing the thing to pieces.**

**Konevski's security team was inconspicuous, but there, and highly trained. At least three were from a military background, another two extensively trained in the marshal arts. But there were more than five—he could see it in the way certain bellhops carried themselves, in the look that the maid had shot him upon passing with her cart—married, three children to get through uni. Not only were they surrounded, they were being watched.**

_**Om bhur bhuvah svaha  
tat savitur varenyam—**_

**The building was designed in a curve, so that the front driveway made a large circle around which cars spun like clockwork. Konevski's room was directly across the way, which made it a simple task to observe him, but it would be foolish to assume that he hadn't been on to them since the moment the plane touched down.**

_**bhargo devasya dhimahi  
dhiyo yo nah prachodayat—**_

**If he had people working the staff, there was no reason why he wouldn't have people keeping track of everyone who checked in. In hindsight, following him the day before—however stealthily—had probably elevated the suspicion already in place due to the holes in the background checks that no doubt had already been run.**

_**Om bhur bhuvah svaha  
tat savitur varenyam—**_

**They must have known. Surely, they must have known that the man practically owned the hotel. He was Sherlock Holmes, not James Bond. He knew when certain tasks were impossible to the point of ridiculous, despite how many times John had accused him of death-defying recklessness. They didn't expect to have Konevski apprehended—they wanted him and Lily to be captured.**

**It was fascinating, how the more details he uncovered about his target, the more he uncovered about the people he himself was working for. **

_**bhargo devasya dhimahi  
dhiyo yo nah prachodayat—**_

**She moved with fluidity and marked breathing, every change of position an exhale. She was not weak in the slightest sense, but it was so easy to imagine the skin stretched over her bones shattering like porcelain. Would she scream when they beat her? Cry out for her lost fiancé? What would the hair piled high on the crown of her head look like when it had been tinted red with her own blood?**

_**Om bhur bhuvah svaha  
tat savitur varenyam—**_

**She glanced at him, catching him watching her, and gave him a hard look—****_you, judge me_****? For a moment he thought she was daring him to discuss what she had divested the night before, but she must have guessed by now that he was not prone to discussing feelings.**

**They hadn't discussed anything, he realized, save for the case and the man she had lost—and that couldn't really be considered a proper discussion. Perhaps he should attempt to do so now…it was only appropriate, since it was his fault she would soon be brutally tortured and then killed. Perhaps he should pay her the courtesy of getting to know her beyond what he had already deduced, like he had John. Figure out precisely how her mind worked, what she loved, whether she hummed while she made coffee or marked her place in books by turning the corners of the page down.**

**But murderers rarely took the time to get to know their victims before killing them, unless they were especially sick. And that was what they were—a murderer and his victim. And she didn't even know.**

_**bhargo devasya dhimahi  
dhiyo yo nah prachodayat—**_

**Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.**

**The fourth day, something went wrong in the equation.**

**She'd let him fall asleep on the couch, the Russian equivalent of crap telly playing softly in the background like an ironic sort of lullaby. Upon waking and attempting to force the stiffness from his limbs, he discovered her kneeling at the window in the sitting room. He was fully prepared to roll his eyes and groan when he noticed that she was not, by any means, doing yoga.**

**The window was open, screen removed, and the long mouth of a sniper rifle was protruding from it into the crisp night air. All remnants of the fog of sleep were ripped from his mind but he didn't even have time for a startled "No!" before she fired.**

**Just one shot.**

**Across the way, Konevski fell over like a puppet whose strings had been cut.**

…

"She _shot_ him?"

"That is what people do with rifles, John."

"Christ," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose and glancing ruefully at the cup of tea that had gone cold beside him. "Why the hell didn't she at least make an attempt at bringing him in alive?"

Ah, John. Always the soldier, always keen to follow orders—except, of course, when other souls were in danger. Sherlock grinned, but the doctor didn't smile back.

"I suppose that's something we'll never find out," _lie._ "Not everyone is as prone to following orders as the good army doctor."

"But she was _Mi6_," _was._ "Following orders was her job—" _was_. "—and she completely threw the main objective of your mission out the window!" John threw his hands up in the air as though the mere notion was a novelty.

Fighting a laugh that would no doubt go unappreciated, Sherlock said, "While I admit that it was surprising and…rather unprofessional of her, the circumstances as they were—"

"Circumstances? Sherlock, you could have drawn him out, taken him on when his security was at his thinnest, dug for more info, blackmailed him,anything."

"You sound like a very promising criminal right now, doctor."

"But she killed him right in the middle of his own territory!" John sounded far more frustrated than need be. "Had she not done that, you might not have—"he stopped himself mid sentence. Been captured. Been injured. Been tortured to the point of delirium. He scrubbed a hand over his face and muttered something about 'disregard for authority'. God, Sherlock had missed him.

When he brought his hand down from his face, John was wearing a look of sympathetic recognition. Oh, lord, here come the feelings.

"So…" he said slowly, his voice much calmer. "This is the ugly part, yeah?"

A snort escaped before there was anything he could do to stop it. "'Ugly part'?" he repeated. "You've watched men blown to bits and you call a simple bout of torture the 'ugly part'?"

His friend's brow furrowed. "Torture isn't simple, Sherlock," he proclaimed. "Don't ever belittle your experiences simply because you believe yourself capable of handling them." His tone of voice suggested that he did not believe Sherlock to be capable of any such thing.

Would they not have been captured had she refrained from killing Konevski? It was doubtful. He had goons everywhere, and they were already under suspicion. But it didn't matter. None of it mattered. The look of righteous indignation on his best friend's face was something Sherlock had never thought he would see again, and that in itself was novelty enough. He wanted regular conversation back, wanted that indignation pointed at Sherlock for failing to utilize social etiquette or some other great offense. He wanted John to smile and tell him he didn't have to go any further, that he wouldn't push it. That, or he wanted the doctor to leave.

But John changed tracks a moment later, peering out the window into the London evening beyond. "But if you…you know, want to think it through first, I could go get takeaway?"

So he was going to push it, then. Sherlock quirked an eyebrow. "Chinese?" he wouldn't eat a bite of it, but the sight of John putting on his coat and leaving Sherlock in peace was a relief no drug could supply.

A minute later, though, when John had left, he realized how big of a mistake that was. Suddenly, far too suddenly, he was dwelling on it. And then his pulse was growing faster, as was his breathing, and bile was rising in his throat.

The sound of a car backfiring was a gunshot, the blaring of a horn Lily's screams. Cuts that no longer existed stung his back and his vision blurred with a concussion that had healed months ago and his knuckles were turning white from his grip on the back of the chair but his fingers wouldn't work and the smell—

The time hadn't even come to properly discuss it yet, and he was already falling apart. This was why John should have left well enough alone. He'd forced Sherlock to think about it, about her, when all he wanted to do was delete every time she had smiled and replace it with John's smile. John was welcoming and home and medicine while she was knives and fire and icy, icy blue.

He shouldn't have tried to get Sherlock to face his past. He should have complied with his friend's request to simply move past it, forget it happened, return to married life with Mary and a baby and laughter and _god_, why wouldn't the man _smile_?

When John re-entered the flat, arms laden with Chinese food, it was to the sound of retching.


End file.
